Heroes of the Storm for a sensitive soul?

Hey guys, I've avoided MOBAs because I understand that they have some of the most brutally insulting players in all of gaming. I would probably be a sub-par player, and I don't want to spend my play time listening to insults about my mother and her attraction to donkeys. That being said, I seem to remember reading that Blizzard was making an effort to control toxic behavior in HotS. Is that correct? Does it work? Is there a place in the game for a sensitive, filthy casual like me?

Comments

Less toxic and much much more casual friendly. But still a MOBA--if you wanna play one, you'll be insulted less.

General rule, people tend to get extra offensive during ranked matches. Even in LoL if you play normal games, you would rarely get insulted. Because the results don't matter and people either play normal games to learn new champs or builds/stratrgies, or they are carefree casuals like yourself.

And when you rarely run into a sociopath, just mute em.

Have you ever noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?

You can mute the entire chat if you want. There's a key combo you can use, though I forget what it is. As @Dakeru points out, you can play against AI -- something I do almost exclusively. I play with a partner where we're on the same team with the balance and the opposing team filled out by AI. We choose our difficulty level and so forth and our heroes level just fine and we receive rewards, etc. Since we're not into ranked play or find any compelling reason to play with other people, it works quite well.

I think at the start of each match it says something that says click to enable, or disable chat haven't played HOTS in awhile.

Found a video. Maybe that will help?

Still, the best advice if you're going to play in public matches is to only mute players who are flaming. Most won't in unranked matches but if they do, you can /ignore PlayerName rather than the whole team.

In my day MMORPG's were so hard we fought our way through dungeons in the snow, uphill both ways.

Fools find no pleasure in understanding, but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon

I played LoL for about 5 years at a fairly high level, as I love the game itself. Once you get into the genre a little, you realize the game is full of nuanced decisions. Because of the fact that there is not much roleplay and storytelling, the developers devote most of their efforts to polishing gameplay and balancing the experience.

I left LoL about 2 years ago due to the community. You do become numb to the insults to some extent, but it never goes away fully. I remember not being insulted after making a mistake was actually a euphoric experience (not exaggerating), as all the toxicity is commonplace. Some people say it's not that bad, but I'd argue those people are either playing with friends exclusively, play against bots or play very little.

HOTS is quite friendly overall. You still get some negative players and some insults, but nowhere near as much as in LoL. There are some mechanics that make it friendlier. Experience is shared across the team, so you avoid situations where one person is level 10, whereas the other is still level 6 (tempting the higher level to be toxic). Similarly, there is no gold from minions, which means people don't have to fight over who gets what team resources. As others have mentioned, you can turn off the chat entirely if you wish.

Unlike most other MOBAs, HOTS is a very team oriented game. You can gain big advantages by taking key points on the map at the right time. Even if someone completely obliterates the opponent on their lane multiple times, it doesn't translate into a victory if the rest of the team isn't contesting objectives. This is a bittersweet thing for me, as you can't really impact the game that much even if you try your best. You can be in games where people are completely lost, slowly seeing the victory slip away with no real way of preventing it. In games like LoL, you can often overpower the whole game by performing really well - or you can make high risk plays that result in a big swing for your team. HOTS is more about setting things up as a team and reaping the rewards at a later point in time.

I definitely recommend giving it HOTS a try though. The characters are quite fun to play. If you are new to MOBAs, then merely testing out all of the characters (they play very differently) will give you many hours of fun.

also can play solo versus ai pause the match an do whatever you want, set it easy or hard, it best if you want nothing too effect you. if you don't mind some criticism quick match is good, most time everyone friendly in till bad plays cost them a win then the finger pointing starts.